Tag Archives: hong kong

I recently returned from a trip to Taipei, Macau, and Hong Kong to visit a friend living abroad. I was eager to try the food because Taiwan is known for dumplings (which I’m obsessed with) and Hong Kong is the birthplace of dim sum, one of my favorite meal-traditions. My expectations were definitely met, if not exceeded by the scrumptious and wallet-friendly dumpling-paradise that I ate my way through. Dumplings, however, were not the only tasty morsels I came across. I had a fantastic Japanese-style in the food court of the famous Taipei 101 building:

Taipei also has great dim sum (not quite as good as Hong Kong) but very similar. One of the most famous places to have dim sum there is a popular chain called Din Tai Fung. We went to the location in the basement of the Sogo department store, which is surrounded by a wonderful up-scale grocery store full of interesting bites to sample and gawk at. Here are a few of our dishes from the meal:

Din Tai Fung was really good, but the dim sum we had in the mecca of dim sum definitely trumped it. Without too much struggle, we found a very nice dim sum place I had read about called Fu Sing. When we arrived, we discovered it specializes in shark fin, but don’t worry, we did not try that out. Luckily a member of the wait staff spoke a bit of English and we were able to order quite the assortment of my fav dim sum items:

While the BBQ pork really knocked our socks off, it was the steamed pork buns that really stole my heart. Best steamed pork buns I have ever had.

And of course I can’t talk about food in Taiwan without mentioning bubble tea, which is a Taiwanese creation. My first night in Taipei we went to one the night markets, which was a very stimulating scene but unpleasantly marked by the stench of stinky-tofu (I think it’s similar to nato). I did enjoy a large traditional bubble tea – just the milk tea flavor: